


Gilgamesh

by Morgan Steelgrave (m_steelgrave)



Series: Gilgamesh [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Manipulative Dumbledore, Minimal Time Turner Use, The Deathly Hallows, Tom Riddle doesn't like puzzles he can't solve, but he means well, kind of canonical character death anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 02:15:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4728995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_steelgrave/pseuds/Morgan%20Steelgrave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It is an old story<br/>But one that can still be told<br/>About a man who loved<br/>And lost a friend to death<br/>And learned he lacked the power<br/>To bring him back to life." - The Epic of Gilgamesh, trans. Herbert Mason</p><p>At the start of his sixth year, Tom Riddle has a brief but significant encounter with a mysterious boy who tries to kill him. Everything changes after that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have been poking at this story off and on for years now. Yes, years.
> 
> Originally posted (incompletely) on my LJ and/or DW, under the same name. I finally (and randomly) finished the first arc of this and am nearly finished with the second, so I thought I might post it here to exorcise the demons, so to speak.
> 
> Inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh and various other myths, but no knowledge of them is required.

**Hogwarts, July 2003**

Tom had to duck as he stepped through the doorway into Dumbledore's office. The wound Death had given him throbbed dully after climbing what seemed like thousands of stairs, and Tom silently cursed the school for housing its headmaster in a drafty tower. The place had changed quite a bit since he was last there—the entire room was filled with metallic gadgets that whirred, clicked, or ticked. An adolescent phoenix snoozed on its perch. The portraits were still present, with the addition of Armando Dippet; they were mostly still dozing. The current headmaster, however, was nowhere in sight. 

Tom walked slowly over to the windows, looking out over where he knew the quidditch pitch and distant mountains were, though they were obscured by the mist in the still-dark morning. He could faintly see his own reflection in the window and winced. He was the palest and thinnest he'd ever been, and his eyes were so bloodshot it was apparent he'd not slept in days. Tom was beginning to question whether this was the impression he wanted to give Dumbledore, but there was no time to reconsider as the door to the headmaster's private rooms opened and Dumbledore himself appeared.

"Tom! You must forgive my manners," said the older man. If he was surprised by Tom's appearance, he did not show it. He descended the short staircase from the landing and gestured to the chair in front of his desk. "Won't you sit down?"

"Thank you," said Tom as he sat—slowly, flinching slightly at the tug in his hip. Dumbledore was still standing near the foot of the stairs, watching him. "I heard that you had become headmaster. I suppose congratulations are in order," he said in an effort to banish the uncomfortable silence.

"I am glad you approve," said Dumbledore, smiling. 

"Bit late," grumbled one of the portraits. "He's only been headmaster fifty years."

"Oh," said Tom. "It seems I've been a bit out of touch."

"Never mind him. Phineas is always a bit testy when he first wakes. May I offer you tea? A drink?"

"The sun isn't even up," Tom protested. Dumbledore's smile broadened at the mild horror on Tom's face.

"I won't tell," said the headmaster, going to a cabinet and retrieving two glasses of honey mead. 

"Thank you, Professor," Tom said again, taking his glass as Dumbledore found his seat behind the desk. "I have come a long way."

"You may call me Albus, Tom. I have not been your teacher for quite some time now." Dumbledore regarded him with the same seemingly omniscient gaze Tom remembered from his school days. Finally he said, "There appears to be some truth to the rumors concerning your whereabouts since your abrupt departure from school."

Tom made a noncommittal noise from behind his glass. Dumbledore continued, "To many you are known as—"

"I am aware of what they choose to call me," Tom interrupted. He was too tired to play Dumbledore's favorite game of conversational hide-and-seek.

"Voldemort," mused the headmaster. "The man who would steal from Death. Some of the stories they tell of your exploits are quite entertaining. And poetic."

"Ignorant rubbish," muttered Tom. "I failed."

Dumbledore shrugged, a gesture almost too casual for the aged wizard. "You walked up to Death itself and lived to tell the tale."

"Not for lack of trying on Her part," said Tom. He sighed heavily and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "I am...tired, Albus," Tom said. He knew he looked it.

"What can I do for you, my boy?" Dumbledore smiled kindly.

Tom remained silent for a long time, and Dumbledore did not push. "I understand Professor Merrythought is retiring after this year."

The headmaster nodded. "That she is. Galatea's devoted her life to teaching here. She has earned some quiet days."

"I want the job." Tom could not keep his mouth from quirking slightly when Dumbledore's eyebrows raised in surprise. "I'm too damned tired to beat around the bush, Albus."

"I see," said Dumbledore.

"Albus, I wanted to return to Hogwarts as a teacher long before I left. Perhaps for different reasons. Darker reasons," he admitted, looking out the window. "You suspected much when I was a student."

"You gave me cause to be suspicious, Tom."

"Whatever you think I did, I did more," said Tom, meeting Dumbledore's eyes squarely.

"So you've come to do penance?" Dumbledore smiled and steepled his fingers on his desk. "Forgive me, Tom, but that doesn't sound much like you."

"It isn't."

The headmaster smiled. "Before I give you an answer, I should like very much to hear about your journey. I am anxious to see which rumors have a grain of truth in them."

Tom thought a moment, then set his empty glass on the headmaster's desk. He drew his wand and said, "Let me show you." Dumbledore seemed a bit surprised at this gesture—not that Tom could blame him, really, because the Tom that the headmaster knew would never have offered to bare his thoughts so completely—but said nothing as he retrieved the pensieve from a cabinet and set it carefully on his desk.

"Are you certain?" he asked. Tom inhaled deeply and held the wand to his temple. A substantial silvery strand spun outward and latched onto the wand's tip. Tom slung it into the pensieve without ceremony.

"After you, Albus," he said.

* * *

**Hogwarts, September 1943**

As usual, Tom was elated to return to school in the autumn of his sixth year. His friends, if they could be called that, had already noticed something different about him. It was more than the addition of a black-and-gold ring on his finger. Tom had always projected confidence and charisma, but there was an added edge of fearlessness in Tom's demeanor that they couldn't explain, but that they welcomed with awe and respect.

The confidence came from severing his ties with his unsavory past, and using that to start his journey toward immortality. With the death of Tom's father came a new beginning, the product of years of research and work and charming the information he needed out of unwitting fools. Tom had created his first Horcrux, the diary tucked safely away in the bottom of his school trunk.

Tom felt he had gleaned enough from the past to finally focus on the future, his future.

Then, everything changed.

It was in the general bedlam of the class-change when the boy appeared in the hall, cloak of invisibility clutched in one hand, time harnessed on a golden chain around his neck. Tom was walking toward potions, so he did not so much see the boy appear as he did feel everything in the hall fall strangely still and silent as it did when the attendants at the orphanage tarred the windows and doused the lamps. Drawn to the silence, Tom turned. There was something familiar about the boy—about the way he walked toward him, confidently, purposefully. Tom was so focused on trying to place the boy in his memory that he was completely unprepared when the boy drew his wand and pronounced a spell that knocked Tom back against the wall.

The impact made his ears ring, and through the noise inside his head another noise swelled, that of other students cheering the fight. Slytherins were yelling for him to retaliate, but a few others were encouraging the stranger to finish the job. Tom listened to the students shouting praise for someone other than himself and felt his pride flare. He drew his wand and countered with a curse of his own. 

The cheering stopped when the boy spoke the killing curse. Tom dodged it effectively, though the ricocheting green sparks frightened most of the onlookers away.

"Enough of this," said Tom under his breath, and ran full-tilt at the boy, pinning him to the ground. Panting, the boy’s face was inches from his own, Tom pressed the tip of his wand into the hollow of the boy's throat. It was at that moment that the boy looked up at him, wordlessly daring Tom to finish what he had begun.

Tom gasped. Here was a face he had known for years and never met, a familiar companion through his nightmares. Yet something was wrong—the boy had never been this pale, dark circles cradling eyes green like death. Beneath Tom's weight his bones protruded at sharp, fragile angles. Tom suddenly felt queasy at the thought of crushing them. He lowered his wand and stood, reaching down a hand to help the familiar stranger to his feet. The look on the boy's face was one of incredulity. He looked at the offered hand as if it might bite him, but Tom did not withdraw it. After a long moment, the boy took his hand, but only to pull Tom back to the ground and leap onto his chest, like a night-terror made flesh, wand pushing his chin upward.

"You had me," said the boy. Tom was not surprised that he spoke Parseltongue. He answered, "I know."

"I'm going to kill you."

"I know."

The boy paused, staring at Tom as if he were trying to decipher a foreign text. "You're a fool." Tom felt the syllables of the curse brush his face. He forced his eyes to remain open, to meet his fate.

His professors finally arrived on the scene and were on the boy within seconds. The last third of the killing phrase left the boy’s body in an inarticulate gasp of frustrated fury as his wand was banished from his hand. Tom felt the boy's hands close around his neck, but his eyes had never left the half-wild gaze behind the glasses. Tom could not move as he watched those eyes roll back into the boy's skull after being hit by a stunning curse. The boy slumped against him, hands still resting on Tom's collar. Over the boy's dark head Tom could see Slughorn and Dumbledore, wands drawn. 

"Mr. Riddle?" asked Professor Dumbledore. Tom wasn't sure if it was intended out of concern or accusation. He addressed it as the former.

"I'm fine," he said, glad that his voice did not betray how shaken he was. When the professors dragged the boy away, Tom remained on the floor for a moment, hand at his throat. It seemed an eternity before he brushed away the dust and the gaggle of concerned classmates and headed for the hospital wing.

* * *

The professors watched the boy closely in the infirmary, confined to his bed and sedated. Tom ignored their warnings and kept an eye on him, too.

The boy awakened not long before midnight. By that time the faculty had scattered, and Tom returned to his bedside in time to find him testing the strength of the binding spell that held him prone. Eventually he gave up his struggles and simply lay there, baleful eyes roving in the dark.

"I'm sorry they've restrained you. They claim it's for your own good," said Tom. Silence. He tried again, "Headmaster Dippet has your Time-Turner. I suppose he'll return it once they're satisfied you pose no threat." Still, the boy refused to look at him. This bothered Tom for some reason he could not explain. It should have been a good thing that the person who tried to kill him that afternoon was ignoring him, but it was not what Tom wanted, not at all. 

"Who are you?" he asked, leaning forward in his chair. "Surely you know me, since you tried to kill me." Still, no reply from the boy. Tom wanted to grab the boy's face and make him look at him, to force him to allow Tom to read the secrets scrawled across his consciousness. But taking something in that manner felt like cheating somehow, like something Dumbledore would do. Frustrated, Tom rose from his chair and stood by the window, one hand absently fingering the bruised skin at his throat. Madame Birch had offered to heal it for him, but Tom had refused, claiming he could heal it on his own. He just hadn't gotten around to it yet, he told himself.

"No," said the boy after a long moment. Tom turned, thankful the boy was at least speaking to him, and was met with the same poisonous yet disbelieving stare that had pinned him to the ground earlier. "You are not the person I thought you were."

"How do you know?" Tom asked.

"You could have killed me."

"Likewise."

"But you didn't," said the boy. "He would not have done that. I don't understand."

Tom approached the bed and said, "You appear to be doing an admirable job of dying without my hurrying it along." The boy laughed, and Tom found himself smiling, even though he knew he wasn't in on the joke. Tom asked in Parseltongue, "Who do you think I am?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you," came the reply.

"Why?"

The boy smiled. "Speak of the devil, and he's presently at your elbow."

Tom snorted. "Rubbish," he said in English. The boy's smile unnerved him, not because he was smiling, exactly, but because of the kind of smile it was. 

"What name do you wish to be called, then?" the boy asked, almost coy. 

Considering his answer carefully, Tom answered, "You may call me Tom." 

"Tom?" the boy repeated, forming the name as if it were made completely of strange syllables foreign to his tongue.

Tom raised his eyes from the floor, a flush of embarrassment on his cheeks. "It's a common name. I'll be known as something else, someday."

"So what if it's a common name? You are like no other Tom." The embarrassment remained on Tom's face, but perhaps for a different reason. The boy shrugged as best he could under the binding spell. "Well, I prefer it to calling you anything else. Besides, 'Lord Voldemort' is a bit of a mouthful."

Tom had to make a concerted effort not to let his jaw drop. "That name is what my friends call me in private," he hissed. "How do you—?"

"They must not be very close friends if they're running around calling you 'Lord.'"

Tom looked absolutely gobsmacked. It was not a feeling he was accustomed to, nor was it one he liked experiencing. "Who are you?" he demanded once again.

The boy smiled again, but did not answer. 

"I need to know your name," said Tom. "I feel as though we've already met, but I don't know your name. It's...frustrating."

"Is it?"

"I've seen you before."

"I'm afraid that's impossible," said the boy.

"I have dreams about you." There. He'd said it. Tom looked over at the boy, who merely cocked his head and continued to watch Tom with a smile that continued to make Tom feel uncomfortable. He went on, "I know, that's before we ever met, but you've been in them for quite some time. Since I first came to Hogwarts, really. I thought at first that I could never be certain it was you, that it could be anyone, but I think I'd recognize someone I've been dreaming about for almost five years now. Except here you look—"

Like you're dying, he thought, but dared not voice it aloud.

The boy interrupted quietly, "No. Tell me."

Hesitantly, Tom began, "It's always the same: there is a beautiful night sky, like the one you can't see in the city. It is so peaceful there, and then a star falls to earth right by a house. Somehow I enter the house—it's a nice house. Small, clean. Secret. It's strange, but there's a definite feeling of secrecy about it, like I shouldn't be there.

"But it's happy. Or it was, at least, until the dream really starts up. There's a couple, a man and a woman. The man looks a lot like you. Older, of course, but just like you. The woman has these exquisite green eyes," Tom paused, acutely aware of the boy watching him with a strikingly similar gaze. Breaking away, he began to pace, crossing in and out of the moonlight. "She's quite pretty, but afraid. They both are, very brave, but very afraid."

"What happens?" 

"Someone, or some _thing_ comes. Something dark. I never can remember exactly what happens, but I know that by the time I wake up, they're both dead. The house has burned to the ground and standing in the midst of all the smoking rubble is this lonely little boy..." 

Tom turned to look at that boy, now confined to his bed in the infirmary. The boy's eyes were closed, and he had broken out into a sweat. Tom approached and sat on the edge of the bed. "That is you, isn't it? I know it is. Sometimes you can be more certain of something in a dream than you can of anything in reality." Tom fell silent, watching the other boy. It was obvious from this perspective that he was painfully thin and haggard, blue veins fluttering visibly beneath the surface of his skin. Wondering if he had a fever, or perhaps needing confirmation that the strange boy stretched out before him was even real, Tom reached out a hand to feel the boy's forehead.

A hand shot up and caught Tom's wrist, wringing a gasp of surprise from him. The boy had wordlessly and wandlessly broken the restraining spell and was staring at him, eyes smoldering.

"You may have a fever," Tom stammered, ashamed of the catch in his voice and of the awe he felt at the boy's feat of magical skill.

"No."

Tom insisted. "Just let me check," he said more firmly, but the boy's grip tightened until Tom was sure he felt his bones creak.

"It's not a fever."

"Then what is it?" Tom demanded. "You won't tell me your name, at least tell me what is wrong with you so I can help."

The boy's eyes dropped to the gold-and-black ring on Tom's finger. "Like you helped Morfin Gaunt?" he asked.

Tom could not hide his shock. "How did you—?"

"You're a smart boy. You figure it out." The boy dropped his hand.

"But—" Tom began, but the boy closed his eyes and shut out Tom's presence entirely. For a moment, all Tom wanted to do was tear him open and decipher the boy's secrets in the fall of his entrails on the cold slate floor. Thoroughly confused and fuming that he had been dismissed, Tom slammed the door on his way out, ignoring the nurse's scolding.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When a man begins to know himself a little he will see in himself many things that are bound to horrify him. So long as a man is not horrified at himself he knows nothing about himself." - _In Search of the Miraculous_ , P.D. Ouspensky

**Hogwarts, September 1943**

Tom spent all evening and most of the following morning researching everything he could think of that might shed some light on the stranger who knew as much about him as he knew about himself. He flipped pages urgently, unable to escape the sense that the mysterious boy might vanish before Tom had a chance to determine who he was. With this in mind, he turned his attention to the illness that afflicted the boy. If he could stave off that, then he could take his time unraveling the rest of the enigma.

This was not as easy as Tom had hoped, however. Nothing fit together, especially not the symptoms that afflicted the boy. Tom could find nothing in the library's books on medicinal magic that suggested an illness or curse that the mediwitches would be unable to cure. The simplest way to get the information he desired was to ask, Tom supposed, but when he tried to visit the boy again the damned mediwitch refused to say a word about the boy's condition, citing not only patient confidentiality but the fact that Tom really had no business asking. He barely listened to the reprimand, and instead found his gaze focused past Madame Birch's shoulder and on the strange boy. He was tossing fitfully, a sheen of sweat on his pale face. Tom frowned.

"So unless you are ill, Mr. Riddle," Madame Birch brought her lecture to a close, "your place is in class. Do you understand?" Tom turned and stalked to the door before the mediwitch added, "And ten points from Slytherin for rudeness!"

Highly irritated with both his lack of progress and the healer's stringent perspective of manners, Tom turned back to Madame Birch and managed an apology through gritted teeth before bolting out the door. He did not make it far, however, before he ran directly into Albus Dumbledore.

"Afternoon, Mr. Riddle. I imagine you were just thinking this day could not possibly get any worse," Dumbledore said with a small smile.

"Excuse me, Professor," said Tom, making a concerted effort to get as far away from Dumbledore as soon as was humanly possible.

"Tom," said Dumbledore in a way that made Tom stop in his tracks. "I hear you've spent quite a lot of time with our mysterious visitor."

"Yes, sir."

"It might seem a bit strange to some that you've been visiting someone who tried to kill you."

Tom finally turned to face the professor, but the older man's expression was unreadable. "It might," he conceded.

"As soon as he is well enough, he will be dealt with by the Ministry. I trust you would not attempt to mete out your own brand of justice." 

Tom cursed inwardly. Now he was racing not only the boy's strange affliction, but the incompetent Ministry's involvement, as well. Dumbledore watched him for a moment to be certain that Tom understood, and then continued into the Infirmary.

"Sir?" Tom called after him. "Why must the Ministry be involved?"

Dumbledore raised one eyebrow over his spectacles. "This is attempted murder, Tom."

Tom swallowed nervously. He hated speaking with Dumbledore, absolutely abhorred it. The feeling he got when the professor gave him that _look_ —the very idea that he would have the nerve to openly practice Legilimency on his students—infuriated Tom. Now that he had his attention, words seemed to fail him as he concentrated on keeping his mind as shuttered as possible without seeming suspicious. "I don't know, sir. It's just that—if I'm the one he tried to kill, but I'm not angry about it, really—why should the Ministry be involved at all?" He sounded like a babbling idiot and he felt his face flush from embarrassment. Dumbledore's smile did nothing to ease his discomfort.

"Perhaps," said the professor. "I shall mention it to the headmaster. He is preparing to meet with the Ministry representatives shortly. You'd best run along to class, Tom. Professor Slughorn had undoubtedly noted your tardiness. Ah, Galatea!" Tom turned to see Professor Merrythought approaching. She gave him a curt nod before entering the infirmary with Dumbledore.

Tom thought briefly of the potions class he was missing, but his mind had followed Dumbledore and Merrythought into the hospital wing. Why, he wondered, was the Defense Against Dark Arts professor there? He tiptoed to the door and pressed his ear to the crack.

"Any change?" Dumbledore's voice came from somewhere near the mysterious boy's bed.

"His fever is worse," said Madame Birch, "and he has terrible night sweats. I've had to scourgify the sheets twice since he's been asleep."

"And none of the remedies have had any effect?"

"Minimal, at best."

"I see," said Dumbledore. "Thoughts, Galatea?"

It was silent for a long time. At last Professor Merrythought replied with a single word, "Emaciatus."

"A wasting curse that powerful?" Madame Birch sounded incredulous.

"Nothing else fits," said Merrythought. "It's not a Muggle illness or your remedies would have cured it."

"But wasting spells haven't been used in years," Madame Birch insisted. "And they were used as a weapon against an entire army, not one individual."

"No other curse causes such protracted mortality without affecting one's mind," Dumbledore mused. Tom felt his heart stop. Before he quite knew what he was doing, he barged into the room.

"You have to stop it," he said in the commanding voice he reserved for his peers, but never used in the presence of faculty members.

"Tom," Professor Dumbledore began, but Tom ignored him and marched over to Professor Merrythought.

"There's a countercurse, right? Or an antidote? We can ask Professor Slughorn, he'll know what to do." Tom grasped her hand and tried to pull her along like a petulant child. None of the adults moved or said a word. Tom looked around at them, the urgency in the pit of his stomach increasing. "Why aren't you doing anything?" he demanded. After a long moment and several hesitant glances exchanged between the professors, Merrythought spoke.

"Because, my dear, there is no countercurse for Emaciatus," she said, gently.

"What?" Tom could not believe what he was hearing. There had to be a countercurse of some kind, there just had to be.

"There is no spell to undo the damage inflicted by a wasting curse this powerful. It must have been cast by a very powerful dark wizard, for it to be progressing this slowly," the Dark Arts professor explained.

"Whoever cast this spell wanted to enjoy watching this boy suffer," said Dumbledore. "He wanted the magic to be released slowly, to increase in strength after a long period of time. And he wanted the boy to be aware of what was happening to him."

"But—

"He's going to die, Tom." Dumbledore placed his hands on Tom's shoulders, looking down at him from over his spectacles. "I'm sorry."

Tom opened his mouth to say something, but the sound caught in his throat. He looked past Dumbledore to the boy's bed. Although Tom had been surrounded by children who were dead or dying of disease and war, he had never really looked at death.

"How long?" he managed, finally.

"Three days, at the most," said Professor Merrythought. "It is already entering its advanced stages."

"I shall inform the headmaster. It would appear any Ministry involvement would be a waste of time and resources," Dumbledore said.

Tom merely nodded. He heard but did not really register the professors conversing quietly with one another on their way out of the room. Dumbledore threw him one final, thoughtful gaze before the door swung shut with a thump that echoed in Tom's chest. He stepped closer to the bed, watching the boy. His brows were creased even in sleep.

What had this boy been through to haunt him in his sleep and kill him in his waking? And how did he know so much about him? Tom only liked puzzles when he could dissect them and present them like butterflies pinned to the wall with their wings spread wide but flightless. This puzzle was not only refusing to yield its secrets to him, it was only a matter of days before the chance to understand the boy's significance would be gone forever.

Silently, he reached out a hand brushed aside the messy, sweat-soaked fringe from the boy's forehead. His own brows furrowed in thought when the lightning-shaped scar was revealed. A curse scar, definitely, but from what? The curse that was slowly leeching the life from the boy as he lay there? Tom felt his fingernails dig into his palm. The curse that, supposedly, no one could lift. Not even him. He reached out to touch the scar, to feel the physical remnants of the curse itself, to get to know his enemy better.

He knew the instant his fingers made contact with the boy's flawed skin that his assumption about the origin of the scar had been incorrect. He felt magic uncoiling there, following the bridge of his fingers and tingling up his arm.

A woman's voice, screaming, then a flash of green light glinting through the windows of the cottage before it was blown apart. A gawky red-haired person—or was it several?—and a girl with bushy hair and a smile full of large teeth. A graveyard, a creature with white, snakelike flesh and red eyes, and another flash of green light. A dark tower, a strange feeling of helplessness as a sinister-looking dark man raised his wand. Another flash, both of lightning and of green, illuminating the familiar bearded face of the target before the victim was forced backward over the edge of the tower like a bird shot from the sky. 

Tom snatched his hand away as though it had been burned. He knew exactly what curse had caused the mark on the boy's forehead. He blinked several times to rid his vision of the persistent green, only to realize that he was being watched. How long had the boy been awake?

"I'm sorry," stammered Tom, feeling genuine remorse. This boy, this equal, did not deserve to have his mind rifled through without permission. "I didn't mean—I wasn't—"

The boy rubbed the scar with one hand. He said nothing, and the silence twisted in Tom's middle. "Look, I didn't know that would happen," Tom tried again.

"I know," said the boy quietly. Tom hadn't realized he had been holding his breath until he released a sigh of relief. The boy propped himself up on his pillows and asked, "Does Dumbledore try that with you? To read you?"

"All the time," Tom replied with a wry sneer. "Why?"

"Do you hate it, too?" Tom nodded. He couldn't help but wonder when the professor would have had an opportunity to use Legilimency on the boy, who was scowling. The questions that burned green in Tom's brain could no longer be contained and he asked quickly, "How did you survive it?"

The boy shook his head. "You've already seen too much."

"What, that some lucky bastard gets to blast Dumbledore off the top of the Astronomy tower?" Tom laughed outright. "I'm only disappointed it wasn't me."

Glaring, the boy said, "You shouldn't have seen _any_ of it."

"Fine, fine," said Tom impatiently, "but what I want to know is this: if you somehow survived the killing curse, can you do that again to overcome the Emaciatus?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because it doesn't work that way."

"That's ridiculous. If you can do something to keep yourself from—"

"What exactly am I to do?" asked the boy.

"Something! Anything!"

"There are things worse than death." the boy explained patiently. He sighed, looking out the window.

The boy's quiet acceptance of what was to come was completely alien to Tom. Infuriated that someone so powerful would surrender so easily to a simple human weakness, Tom drew his wand and trained it on the boy. Tom wasn't sure if he wanted to cast Imperius and force the boy to fight for his own survival, or if he wanted to end his ungrateful existence that very second. The boy merely looked at him. He did not retaliate.

Furious with the boy, the situation, and himself, Tom took his temper out on an unsuspecting flower arrangement on the table. Shards of opalescent glass and white petals flew everywhere. The boy's eyes never left him. After a moment, Tom dropped his gaze. He waved his wand and restored the vase, much in the manner he wished he could with the boy. Turning his wand in his fingers and fighting the urge to curse something else into oblivion, he turned to the boy and said, "I can get your Time-Turner from Professor Dippet. Go back and kill the person who did this to you before he has the chance."

The boy smiled, but this time it was almost sheepish. "I tried that, actually. It didn't turn out quite as I'd planned."

The implications in that statement suddenly fell into place in Tom's head. His stomach dropped to somewhere around his knees. " _I_ did this to you?"

" _Will_ do this to me, would be more accurate," said the boy with a shrug. "You haven't done it yet."

"Why?"

"Because I lived." He tapped his forehead where the mysterious scar hid behind his sweaty fringe. There seemed to be more to the boy's answer, but Tom was still too shocked to inquire further. The boy continued thoughtfully, "At least the future you won't get to watch me die. That's one good thing to come of this."

"I don't want to watch you die, either," said Tom suddenly. The boy frowned.

"Why not?"

"I don't want to," Tom said again. "There's no happiness in it."

"What about your father, and his family? Did killing them make you happy?"

"No." Tom suddenly felt as if his legs could no longer support his own weight, and he sank heavily to the edge of the boy's bed. He didn't even question how the boy knew about the murders.

"Then why did you do it?"

"Because it was necessary." The boy narrowed his eyes in a very Dumbledoreish manner, and Tom squirmed under the scrutiny. "Because I was angry, and because I could," he admitted.

The boy merely nodded. "Anger comes easiest."

Tom turned to him. "Was that why I did this to you? Why you're going to—?"

"Why are you so determined to save my life?" asked the boy. "Is it because you don't want to see me die, or is it because you look at me and you see yourself?"

Tom was silent. The boy continued, gentler, "If I am to die, I am happy to do it here, with someone who won't be too maudlin about it. I hope."

Something crumbled in Tom's chest. "You mean you're happy to die? With me?"

"I have no one left but my enemy. I suppose that will have to do." 

"I don't understand you," said Tom, and it was the truth. It chafed him. His fingers itched to pull the boy apart piece by piece, turning each one over in his hands until he understood the inner workings of a person with such a foreign acceptance of his impending end. But that was a concept that Tom would never, could never understand. How could someone just give up when they were this young, this powerful, this important?

The boy smiled patiently, as if he knew exactly what turmoil was in Tom's head. He settled back against the pillows once again, and Tom stayed with him, silent, until he was asleep. Then he rose, quietly, and headed resolutely toward the dungeons.

Slughorn's office door was open. Tom stepped inside, and a dozen or so sets of eyes fixed on him. The whispers were barely whispers, but Tom ignored them.

"Tom, my boy!" cried Slughorn, heaving himself off his overstuffed chair to place an arm around Tom's shoulders. "We weren't sure you'd make it, what with that dreadful attack and all. Perfectly understandable if you wanted some time to yourself. Glad you're here, though, the Slug Club just isn't the same without you! Pineapple?"

Tom stared at the box of crystallized pineapple, which he had acquired for Slughorn many times over the years with hopes of a favor in return. He felt vaguely ill and shook his head in the negative. It was pineapple he had brought Slughorn the night he finally managed to glean from the professor the information he so desperately wanted about Horcruxes. 

Horcruxes. That was it.

"Excuse me, sir," said Tom, "but I'm not feeling up to the meeting tonight after all. I thought I might be all right, but—"

"Understandable, completely understandable, my boy," said Slughorn with great sympathy. "You get some rest and we'll see you at our next meeting, hmm?"

Tom was out of the meeting like a shot. He had work to do.

* * *

It took Tom the better part of two days to prepare, and all the while his mind kept wandering back to the hospital wing. He had so little time. Whenever the boy was awake, Tom stayed by his side. They played game after game of chess to help pass the slow, agonizing hours, until the boy's hands began to tremble so badly by the second day that he kept knocking the pieces over by accident. Tom put the set away to save the boy the embarrassment, though he felt relieved not to have to watch the boy's shaking fingers maneuver the pieces. He did not ask any further questions about what he had seen in the boy's mind, nor did the boy volunteer anything.

When the boy was asleep, Tom went to work. 

In the early morning hours of the third day, he crept to the boy's bedside with an hour or so of darkness left. "Come on," he said, shaking the boy's shoulder impatiently.

The boy mumbled something unintelligible. Tom threw the blankets back and slid an arm behind the boy's shoulders to help him sit up. "Let's go," he said.

"Where?" asked the boy. Tom helped him into his shoes.

"Can you walk?" asked Tom without looking up from tying the laces on the boy's left shoe.

The boy stood unsteadily. Tom started to wrap an arm behind him to support him, but the boy swatted at his hand. "I can do this," said the boy, placing his hand on Tom's arm. "Lead the way." Tom pulled the boy's invisibility cloak around them.

It was slow going, despite the fact that the invisibility cloak meant they were less concerned with dodging any early-rising faculty or staff. The boy was greatly weakened, and every step seemed to drain more of his strength. By the time they made it out of the castle itself, he was out of breath and could barely pick up his feet. Tom ignored his protests and picked him up, tucking him close to his chest as they crossed the rougher terrain. Tom tried not to acknowledge the fact that what amounted to a collection of bones in his arms had been powerful enough to pose a serious threat to him just days before.

They reached the pebbled shore of the lake and Tom propped the boy against the base of the cliff. No one from the castle would be able to see them, Tom felt sure. He knelt in front of the boy.

"Are you strong enough to cast a spell?" he asked.

"I don't know," the boy answered. "Why? Why have you—?"

"If it would save your life, could you do it?" Tom interrupted. The boy watched him warily.

"There is no spell that will undo this."

"No, there isn't," Tom conceded, "but if I told you I found a loophole, would you take it?"

"You've found a way to save my life?" Tom nodded. He pressed the boy's wand into his hand.

"It should really take two spells, but I doubt you have enough energy left for both of them," said Tom, rising. He crossed to a larger rock and with little effort pulled a bound and gagged student into view, depositing the girl in front of the boy. Blood trailed down her chin and onto her black-and-gold tie—a Hufflepuff. She was mercifully unconscious. "Since the second spell is more important, you're going to have to do the first bit in a more barbaric fashion. I took the liberty of finishing most of the work for you. All you have to do is finish the job yourself."

The boy did not look as horrified and Tom anticipated. He looked at the girl briefly, watching her twitch occasionally with the aftershocks of Cruciatus. "You want me to kill her so I can live?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Tom exploded. "What does it matter, why? Because you can! Because I don't understand. I need time to understand why I—why you are so important to me. You can't die yet, not like this. Not wasting away into nothingness!"

"You'll never understand," said the boy quietly, but every syllable matched Tom's intensity. "It makes no sense, what you're feeling right now. And you hate it."

"Shut up," Tom spat. "Now use what energy you have left to kill her."

"Why? So I can split my soul? That's a cowardly way to face your fate."

Tom stared at him. He should not have been so surprised; of course the boy would know about Horcruxes. He knew everything else about him. Tom hoped he understood how much he wanted him to live. 

"So you can save yourself," he replied, and found the boy's wand aimed directly at him. He watched the boy struggle to hold the wand steady. "You don't have enough energy left to kill me," he sighed.

"I can try," the boy insisted. He watched with wide, wary eyes as Tom shook his head and dropped to his knees beside him, removing the wand from his hand with little effort. Tom thought he saw frustrated tears in the boy's eyes. Unsure of what to do, he reached out and took the boy's hand. The boy looked at him incredulously. "Why are you doing this?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Tom, and it was the truth.

"You don't even know me."

"I know."

"I tried to kill you."

"I know that, too," Tom replied, "but apparently I tried to kill you first. The least I can do is sit with you."

The boy regarded him for a long moment. His gaze still made Tom uncomfortable, even more so now because he knew it was only a matter of time until he would never have to endure it again. His throat tightened, and he looked away. "Your eyes have changed," said the boy. "You never cried before. It's not like you."

"Nothing is what I thought it was, anymore," said Tom. "Not since you came."

"Good," the boy said vehemently.

Tom sat hushed, holding the boy's hand in his own until he felt the grip slacken. He opened his mouth to say something, but his voice caught when he saw that the boy's eyes stilled. In silence he reached out to touch the boy—the _friend_ —he had lost.

The sun was rising above the distant mountains by the time the faculty found him. Tom remained bent low over the boy's chest, unmoving even as he heard them approach.

"Tom! Tom, my boy, are you injured?" came Slughorn's cry of concern.

Yes, Tom thought. I am. Terribly. Belatedly, he thought of the invisibility cloak, and wished he could wrap himself up inside it with the boy and hide forever.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Dumbledore halting the other teachers several feet away. For once, Tom appreciated the old man's eerie perception. He heard the pebbles crunch beneath the professor's feet as he approached cautiously.

"Tom?" said Dumbledore. Tom ignored him and hugged the boy closer to him. "You have to let him go, Tom." Tom felt a hand on his shoulder and flinched violently. 

"Don't touch him," he hissed, aiming his wand directly at Dumbledore's chest, not caring that he was threatening a professor. He still held the boy's cold hand. 

If Dumbledore was threatened or angered, he did not show it. "There's nothing more you can do for him now," he said quietly.

"I can try," said Tom. Dumbledore watched him for a moment, and Tom had a strange sense that the boy had watched him with a similar gaze.

To his right, Headmaster Dippet and Professor Merrythought were levitating the unconscious Hufflepuff girl in order to escort her to the hospital wing. Tom felt a brief tug of panic in his gut at the realization that the faculty knew he had Crucioed the girl. His wand would be broken, it was certain. 

"Confound it, Albus, I knew we should have allowed the Ministry to remove the boy!" The normally mild-mannered, absent-minded headmaster was outraged.

"He was already dying, Armando," said Professor Merrythought evenly. "What could they have done?"

The headmaster pointed to the sleeping girl. "They could have prevented this! He had already attacked Mr. Riddle, here, and now this poor girl—"

The panicked feeling suddenly tightened. The headmaster didn't think Tom had harmed the girl, he thought the other boy had done it. He thought momentarily of allowing the teachers to continue operating under this incorrect assumption. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut and he would come out of the entire situation looking like a victim.

Yet, as he sat there still clutching the boy to him, keeping his mouth shut was the last thing Tom wanted to do. "He didn't attack her," Tom interrupted quietly. Dippet sighed impatiently and addressed him as he would a small child.

"Now, Tom, I know you've been through a traumatic experience, but—"

"He didn't attack her," Tom repeated, more firmly this time. "It's my fault." He felt the other professors staring at him with pity, but he refused to look away from the headmaster.

"There's no need to feel guilty because of your request that the boy remain at Hogwarts," said Professor Slughorn. Somewhere behind the walrus moustache he smiled sympathetically. "It was a noble thing to do, Tom. I'm sure he seemed very charming, but—"

At the suggestion that the boy had been influencing his thoughts, Tom's tenuous hold on his temper snapped. "You're not listening to me!" he thundered. "You will not blame him for something he did not do. I brought her out of the castle. I performed the Cruciatus on her. I did it to try to save his life," he finished, glaring so fiercely that the teachers looked taken aback.

"We have plenty of time to sort this out," said Dumbledore evenly. "For now, Tom, you should come with us to the hospital wing, just to be safe." The other professors appeared to be in agreement and moved on to shoo away the growing crowd of onlookers.

Tom reluctantly released the boy's hand. He looked on the boy one more time, trying to memorize his face before snapping the boy's wand in two. He tucked the splintered halves into the boy's stiffening fingers before he stood on legs that were shaky from kneeling for hours on end. Dumbledore wordlessly held out a hand to steady him, and Tom did not pull away. He allowed Dumbledore to support him as they walked slowly up the path to the castle.

"They don't believe me, do they?" Tom asked quietly. 

"It is difficult for anyone to believe that such a promising student as yourself would commit such an act, Tom," Dumbledore replied at length.

"Except you, of course."

Dumbledore nodded at the shrewd remark. "I know better than to underestimate you."

Tom considered this for a moment. "Then why have you never acted on your suspicions, sir?"

"Were your actions truly an attempt to save the boy's life?" The professor ignored Tom's question and opened the door to the castle.

"Yes," said Tom, stopping directly in front of Dumbledore as he walked through the door. At nearly seventeen, he was already as tall as the professor, able to look him directly in the eye. He immediately regretted doing so when he felt the sudden, naked sensation of Dumbledore testing the veracity of his statement. Tom recoiled and his protective mental walls dropped into place in an instant. He would not share the turmoil he was barely keeping in check, certainly not with Dumbledore. It was still too unfamiliar and raw. Coldly he said, "You'll have to take my word on that," and moved to continue down the hall.

An eternity passed before they stood outside the infirmary. Tom found himself wanting to be somewhere, anywhere but back there. He would be damned if he let Dumbledore know this, however, so he steeled himself and pushed open the doors.

Madam Birch was preoccupied with healing the Hufflepuff girl—Tom recalled her name being something along the lines of Summers or Summerby—on the far side of the room, so she did not notice as Tom walked slowly over to the now empty bed where the boy had lain just hours before. The sheets had already been changed, the blanket smoothed. No indentation suggested a head had rested on the pillow. It was as if the boy had never been there.

Tom sat on the bed, glancing at the chess set on the bedside table. He picked up a pawn, turning it in his fingers until the marble was warm. He swallowed hard, thinking of the boy growing colder as the minutes ticked by. "I didn't even know his name."

Dumbledore placed a hand on his shoulder—Tom wasn't sure when he had approached, and it disturbed him that his awareness had been so dulled by grief—and said, "I am sorry, Tom. Let none of us make any hasty decisions. You are excused from your classes today. The rest of your fellow students will be quite curious, naturally, and I'm sure you would prefer to avoid them. You may stay here. I am sure the headmaster will wish to speak with the faculty, and perhaps the ministry, about the situation."

"They'll break my wand," said Tom miserably. He was beginning to regret his impulsive moment of honesty at the lake.

"They may."

Tom glared at the old man, fist clenching around the chess piece. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Dumbledore sighed. "Despite what you may think, Tom, it is not my life's ambition to make you miserable." He crossed to the heavy hospital wing doors and added, "Now is the time when we start to become the person we will one day be. Choose your path carefully."

Tom watched him leave, feeling his anger follow. It could be days or minutes until the Ministry started investigating the incident. Though he dreaded the thought of having his wand broken, he thought he still might be able to avoid it, despite his heated confession by the lake. And, even if the worst did happen, a part of him did not really think it could stop him.

The most frightening eventuality, however, was that the Ministry would know about the strange boy's Time Turner. Time was tricky business, and not something the Ministry wanted people meddling with. There was a very good chance they might try to obliviate his memory of the boy. The idea made Tom feel sick to his stomach. The boy was important to him in ways Tom did not yet understand. If he were to continue in his quest for power, he needed to understand this boy. The boy represented an unknown entity, a threat. Understanding that threat was the only strategically sound solution, really. But another part of Tom noted simply that he was the only one who really spent any time with the boy, the only one who knew him to any degree, as limited as his knowledge was. The thought of having that simply erased, and thereby erasing the boy, was intolerable.  
In his anger, Tom clenched his fists in the too-pristine sheets on the bed. 

Except that his right hand was not holding the bedsheets, but the invisibility cloak. Dumbledore must have brought it up with them, Tom realized. He picked up the otherwise neatly folded cloak and smoothed out the creases from his clutching hand.

Tom knew what he had to do. He stayed in the infirmary as long as he dared, until the shadows began to grow long and the other students could be heard in the hall, chatting on their way to the Great Hall for dinner. Tom threw on the cloak and made his way out of the hospital wing and down to his dormitory and, hastily packed bag in hand, back to the castle entrance. Professor Merrythought turned in his direction as he approached the great doors, a thoughtful look on her face, but he managed to duck behind a suit of armor as she passed. Without a backward glance, he was out the door.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Alone as he had never been alone  
> When he had craved but not known what he craved...  
> Death had taken the direction he had gained.  
> He was no more a king  
> But just a man who now had lost his way." - _The Epic of Gilgamesh_ , trans. Herbert Mason

**Knockturn Alley, September 1945**

A dissonant bell signaled the entrance of another customer into the dark, dusty shop. Borgin and Burke's was not the most welcoming shop in the world, but it was certain that none of the customers would ever ask questions about the tall, dark-haired young attendant who had begun working there a few months earlier. This suited Tom just fine. The customer was a friend of Burke's, so the shopkeep emerged from the back room to deal with him personally. Tom had already straightened all the merchandise in the store, and had catalogued all the goods that required more discreet display in the back room. He had little else to do, and so he did what he had done whenever an opportunity presented itself over the last few months: he retreated to the shop's small collection of books in the back corner of the front room. The turnover of books had been disappointing. Tom took the job at Borgin and Burke's in hopes that he would have access to materials that might have been otherwise difficult to locate. There did not appear to be a real demand for books dealing with the subject of Tom's acute interest, however, so the proprietors rarely ordered any new ones. There were several titles Tom had also seen in the restricted section of the Hogwarts library, and Tom had pored over most of the others by this point, but he selected one— _De Vermis Mysteriis_ , bound in reddish-brown, ribbed leather—and scanned the contents, all the same.  

At any other time, Tom had no doubt that he could successfully locate the spells he sought. His current situation was less than ideal, however, and it was frustrating to wander around wizarding London wondering if anyone—the Ministry included—might be looking for him. He had made it thus far without noticing any excessive interest in his activities, though he was still more than cautious about researching a way to find and bring back the boy from a year ago. Having his attention divided between the words on the page and the door at his back did not make his search an easy one. Tom licked a finger and turned the brittle pages of the book in his hands. This one held some promise. Though none of the spells and rituals described were anything Tom had not read about before, there were plenty of references listed. He pulled a quill from behind one ear and began scribbling haphazardly onto a piece of parchment: _Kitab al-Azif, Transeo Mortifera, Going Forth By Day—_

"Shouldn't you be doing something productive, Tom?" 

Tom turned to face Burke with a smile, holding the parchment aloft. “Just cataloguing the books, Mr. Burke," he said as brightly as he could manage. 

Burke squinted at him.  "You spend quite a lot of time cataloguing those books," he said.  

Tom shrugged and replied, "It won't happen again, sir," and deliberately brushed the man's suspicions aside with his mind.  

Burke looked momentarily confused. "What won't happen again?"  

"Nothing, sir. I just bumped into you here in the aisle." Tom smiled apologetically and brushed imaginary lint from Burke's shoulder. "All right, sir?"  

"Quite," grumbled Burke. "You go on home, Tom. I'll close."   

"Thank you, sir."   Still looking confused, the shopkeep wandered off to the back room. As he opened the door, Tom saw Burke's business partner, Batavius Borgin, watching him from behind his desk. Tom sighed. He couldn't keep altering Burke's memory like this. Sooner or later something was bound to backfire. He donned his coat and headed for the shop's front door, thoroughly discouraged.  He hadn't even had a chance to turn the knob before a hand clamped down on his shoulder.

Drawing his wand, Tom whirled and barely stopped the curse leaping to his mouth when he realized he was facing Borgin. Lowering his wand but not putting it away, he said, "That was a dangerous thing to do, Mr. Borgin."  

Borgin smiled, showing yellow teeth. Of the two business partners, he was the younger, though it hardly showed. "I didn't mean to startle you, Tom. I only wanted a word."  

"What kind of word is it you wished to share?" Tom crossed his arms, wand still in hand.  

"Well, since it concerns all the time you've spent with those books, a fact which you seem intent on helping my friend Mr. Burke forget, I thought we should discuss it while he was in the back." Tom grew very still, and Borgin grinned even wider. "Yes, I noticed that, Tom. I also know you've tried to hide it from me, as well, but my brain's a bit younger than Caractacus's and, quite frankly, harder to addle."  

Tom's wand hand twitched. "What is it you wish to know?"  

The smile was gone from Borgin's face. "What it is you're looking for in those books, boy."   

For a moment Tom considered how much he would enjoy watching the disgusting man grind his yellow teeth to the roots in the throes of Cruciatus. In the end, he handed over the list of sources he'd copied down that day.  "I'm looking for any of these volumes, or anything that might yield a little more information on this particular subject," he said, watching Borgin adjust his glasses and examine the parchment.  

"I'm afraid most of these have been banned by the Ministry," he said after scanning the list and returning it to Tom, "which means importing them will be quite costly."  

"So you do have a source?" Tom pressed.  

"It would depend on who is buying."  

Some shoppers were passing by the front windows, and Tom shifted uneasily. "I am."  

"In that case, no. I can't have people running around with books like these, telling everyone and their brother where he got them."  

Tom inhaled sharply. "I can assure you, sir, that if I had these books, I would have far better things to do."  

The shopkeep sighed. "See here, boy. You are not the first person to come here looking for an easy answer to your mum or your little girlfriend getting killed, and you will certainly not be the last. Here," he said, reaching for a thin volume with a peeling cover, "this is more like it."

Tom took the book from Borgin's hands. " _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_?" he read aloud, not bothering to hide the astonishment and disgust from his voice. "These are children's stories!"

"Just what a child like you needs," Borgin replied with a sneer. "Necromancy's serious business, boy. You will only come to grief." And with that, Borgin turned to head for the back of the shop.  

Tom clenched the book and blocked the man's path. "I have known grief. Have you?" he said low, not bothering to disguise the threat. It was infuriating to have the very objects that could help him find a way to undo the damage he had done, only to have this condescending worm of a man keep them from him. The shopkeep looked startled, which was gratifying, though not as gratifying as it would have been to obliviate the man so thoroughly that he couldn't remember his own name. But such an act would arouse suspicion, Tom knew; he settled on erasing Borgin's memory to the point where he would be unable to recall that Tom ever worked there. With one last narrow glare, Tom stormed out of the shop.  

Still fuming, Tom ducked into an alley and tossed the idiotic book to the ground with a curse. He leaned back against the brick wall and glared at the strip of sky visible between the buildings before sliding down into a sulking crouch.

Perhaps he could convince Burke to order the books with the assistance of the Imperius, then...borrow them from the shop. He had done far worse things than stealing books, although it was frustrating to lurk among the shops and libraries like a common thief. A thief of information, but a thief nonetheless. 

On the other hand, it was dangerous to return to the shop after having obliviated Borgin. It was pointless, anyway. Tom hadn't found a single useful volume there during his tenure, so why waste his time?

The breeze in the alley was growing cooler, and it made Tom shiver. The sound of fluttering paper caught his attention, and he realized _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ had fallen open and lay in the gutter after his fit of rage. At the moment the chapter heading read, "The Tale of the Three Brothers," with a strange symbol printed at the top of the page.

Children's books, indeed, thought Tom with an indignant snort. But then his eye was drawn back to the symbol on the page, which suddenly seemed quite familiar. It was a simple enough figure; a line and a circle, inscribed within a triangle. He reached out to pick up the volume and froze.

The Peverell ring. He examined it as closely as he could in the quickening dusk, and recognized the symbol on the stone as the same as that of the book.

But what did it mean? What place did the Peverell crest have in a piece of children's literature? He picked up the book and stood, brushing himself off before starting the walk back to his room at Skuttle & Bane's, reading as he walked.

"There were once three brothers who were walking along a lonely winding road at twilight…"

By some miracle, Tom made it across Diagon Alley and to the boarding house without running into or over anyone. He was enthralled by the simple tale of three brothers who sought to cheat death, but nothing was more enthralling than the idea that the cloak of invisibility that he had taken from the boy might be _the_ cloak, and that the very ring that glinted on his finger might, in fact, be the fabled Resurrection Stone.

The power to bring back the boy—the boy who died before his time, before Tom had a chance to understand his importance—had been with him all along. But in the fable, Cadmus Peverell's beloved had not returned to him as he had hoped, and seeing her unhappy shade had driven him to suicide. Killing himself was something Tom had never considered, not even briefly, so he wasn't terribly concerned that seeing the boy return even as a ghostly version of himself might drive him mad. No, Tom just wanted the opportunity to ask the boy the questions he had never had a chance to ask in the brief time he'd known him. And the boy was so close to death then, that even seeing him return as a shadow would not be so shocking.

In any case, Tom felt with every ounce of resolve that it would be worth it.

He seated himself by the fire and took a deep breath. He wiped his clammy palms on his trousers and pulled the heavy ring off his finger, examining the carving in the firelight.

A triangle, enclosing a circle and a line. The cloak, the stone, and the wand. This had to be it. Clenching his jaw and fixing an image of the boy in his mind, Tom turned the ring over in his hands once, twice, three times.

Nothing happened.

He glanced around the room, hoping that perhaps the boy had returned and was just lurking in the shadowed corners behind the bed or the drapes. But Tom was alone in the room, and nothing else moved but a log settling in the fire with a shower of sparks.

Tom closed his eyes and thought of the boy as he had last seen him, frail and resigned, but still with a strength that Tom didn't understand even as he envied it. He thought of his sunken, beautiful eyes and his gaunt fingers as they held a marble pawn, trembling. He thought of the incredible absence he felt when the boy was gone.

Tom turned the ring again once, twice, three times.

Still, nothing happened.

Frustrated, Tom stood and paced around the room like a caged animal. Why wasn't it working? Perhaps the stone by itself was not enough. He pulled the cloak out of the trunk at the foot of his bed and pulled it over his head before turning the ring three times once more.

Nothing.

All three Hallows must be necessary for any of them to really work, he mused. He was lucky enough to already have two in his possession—though luck had little to do with it, he thought. He was meant to find all three Hallows. The boy must be that important to his future.

If the Peverell ring had been passed down through his ancestors until it reached the Gaunts, then the other two Hallows might have been passed down, as well. Tom needed to know where any other descendants of the Peverells might have ended up. He had no doubt he could find them and, once found, claim the wand as his own. Tom could be charming when he wanted to be. It was convincing enough to fool everyone at Hogwarts—everyone but Albus Dumbledore, anyway—and if charisma didn't work, Tom knew other ways to get what he wanted.

He pushed the ring back onto his finger and flopped down on the bed, not bothering to undress. For the first time since his attempt to save the boy, Tom knew exactly what he needed to do next. That thought comforted him as he drifted off to sleep that night, clutching the invisibility cloak and dreaming of playing chess with a boy whose hands did not tremble.

* * *

**Nurmengard Prison, January 1947**

Tom had read about Azkaban. It was a foreboding place, he knew, where the feeling of despair was so great that the fortress hardly needed to be guarded. Naturally, Tom assumed that if your normal, everyday criminals were sent to such a place, then the prison housing the most powerful Dark Wizard the world had yet known must be much, much worse. He was surprised, therefore, to discover that Nurmengard looked more like a looming, dark resort than a prison. The towering spires had a certain foreboding grace, especially in the stark winter landscape. The surrounding countryside reminded Tom of one of the old Renaissance paintings full of shivering peasants that guarded the dormitory wings at Hogwarts.

He had two out of the three Hallows, and the third was within sight. His body was fairly humming with excitement and pent-up energy. He had been digging through books and parchments for so long, he yearned to get out and _do_ something. His research had required some intuitive leaps, but Tom was sure the Elder Wand had to be here. Or, if not here, then somewhere close by. Grindelwald would know where they had taken his wand after his defeat at the hands of Dumbledore. And if he didn't know—or wouldn't tell him—Tom was prepared to go sifting through the man's memories until he found the clues he needed. 

He knew Grindelwald would never be allowed visitors. Part of what made his punishment so much worse was that he was in solitary confinement without the convenience of losing his mind as the prisoners in Azkaban were wont to do. No Dementors to pluck away his thoughts or happiness. No bleak northern sea crashing against the rocks to remind him that there was no escape. The Dark Wizard was merely stuck, and more than capable of dwelling on how far he had fallen.

From the gathering dark at the edges of the forest, Tom watched the uniformed guards at the prison's entrance paced their short route beneath the arch draped in icicles that read, "For the Greater Good." A moment later, a light appeared in window of the highest tower. That had to be where Grindelwald was imprisoned. Pulling out the invisibility cloak, Tom cast the levitation charm and floated up to the window undetected. It was closed and locked and warded, naturally, but none of these proved much of a hindrance. Tom pulled one side of the frosted window open and perched on the window ledge, frigid fingers gripping the dark stone, still enveloped in the cloak.

In the room, a man with blonde curls sat at a desk, writing. He was handsome in a medieval prince sort of way, but he looked thin and tired and faded. He wore a plain robe and some rather garish socks. Upon feeling the draft from the open window, the man looked up from his writing, brow furrowed.

"Who's there?" he asked. Tom said nothing, and climbed very carefully into the room. He stepped to one side as the man stood and crossed to look out the window, a bit puzzled but not on guard at all. "Albus, is this your idea of a joke?"

Albus? Tom was surprised to hear the man speak so fondly of the wizard who defeated him. When Grindelwald pulled the window closed and moved to return to his desk, Tom pulled the invisibility cloak aside and blocked his path.

Grindelwald did not startle. Instead, he seemed rather curious. "And who might you be?"

"My name is Tom Riddle."

"Tom Riddle," Grindelwald repeated thoughtfully. "I feel as if I have heard that name before."

Tom shrugged. "I doubt it," he said.

Grindelwald did not question him further, but instead gestured to a chair and moved toward a small stove, on which he placed a kettle. Tom realized he must have been stripped of not only his wand, but of his magic. "Have a seat. I'm afraid I can't offer you much. I don't get visitors very often up here."

Tom sat, watching him. "I'm surprised you get visitors at all," he said carefully.

Grindelwald smiled, a little sadly. "Occasionally. But those are always a bit bittersweet, shall we say? But I do receive letters." He indicated the ink and parchment that had held his attention a few moments ago. "You, therefore, are a novelty, Mr. Riddle. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?"

"I would like to know everything you know about the Deathly Hallows," said Tom. Grindelwald's eyebrows shot up.

"Well, you certainly don't beat around the bush, do you? My, my," he said. He set out two mismatched teacups while he waited for the tea to steep. "I'm afraid there isn't much to tell you."

"Mr. Grindelwald, I don't need to be a Legilimens to tell that you're lying." Rather than take the words as a threat, the older man simply wrinkled his nose.

"'Mr. Grindelwald' makes me sound like some sort of banker," he said.

"You didn't answer the question."

Grindelwald poured the tea into the cups with a sigh. "I take it you're yet another ambitious young wizard set on world domination," he said. "Milk? Sugar?" When Tom responded to neither inquiry, he gave a little shrug and handed the teacup to Tom as it was. "Ruling the wizarding world with an iron fist and the Elder Wand. Why is that always what everyone wants?"

"That isn't why I came here," said Tom. Grindelwald fixed him with an incredulous look, and Tom conceded, "Though the thought has crossed my mind." He wrapped his hands around the teacup, thankful for its warmth.

"Indeed? Well, that's refreshing. I get letters—hundreds of letters, and I've only been stuck in this place for three years—from people, saying they agree with my ideas, that they want to carry on the noble work, erase the stain of Muggle stupidity from the earth, you get the idea. Well, they get rather squeamish when they realize what all that actually means. They're all bravado until it comes time to do something about it. But that isn't you, is it?" Grindelwald paused, considering Tom as he sipped his tea. "Don't suppose I could convince you to rally the troops again?"

"Not interested," Tom replied coldly. "I have other things to worry about."

Grindelwald clicked his tongue in disappointment. "Pity. You seem like the type to actually make it happen. Alas!"

Tom fixed him with his most intimidating glare. "I want to know where they're keeping the Wand."

"Ah, The Wand, I can practically smell the capitalization. The Elder Wand. I miss it, I really do."

"They confiscated it, surely. Do you know where they would keep it?"

Grindelwald sighed. "They didn't confiscate it. I lost it, fair and square." At Tom's puzzled look, Grindelwald explained, "A wand has a sense of loyalty. It does its master's bidding, and never works quite as well for someone else. Now, if you are defeated in a duel, then the wand recognizes a new master. Only by defeat or surrender can the mastery of a wand truly be passed to another."

Tom knew the look on his face had to be one of mild horror. "Hell. Dumbledore," he said aloud, not bothering to hide his frustration and disappointment as he dropped his head against the chair's back with an audible thud.

"Tom Riddle," said Grindelwald again, suddenly. Tom sat up and looked at him. "That's where I've heard of you. In Albus's letters."

"Dumbledore wrote you about me?"

"He did. I believe it was not long after my arrival here. Let me see," Grindelwald opened a box that was placed on top of the desk and began rifling through the parchment within. "I can't fathom why he continues to write, unless it is to torture me with the mundane details of life as a teacher of Transfigurations. It does help with the boredom, a bit, I suppose. And he sent me these atrocious socks. They serve the purpose, but the man's taste in footwear is lacking." There was a fondness to his complaints that made Tom wonder just what history might exist between Dumbledore and Grindelwald. "Ah, I believe this is it. October of 1945. Perhaps you would like to read it, yourself?" 

Tom plucked the parchment from Grindelwald's well-manicured hand. Warily he unfolded it and was met with Dumbledore's narrow script. He was surprised to see his name several times, so he began reading at the top of the page.

_"My Dearest Gellert,_

_I hope this letter finds you well, all things considered. I have included some lemon drops and hope they bring you some small comfort as you think back on earlier days._

_I confess I do not write you simply out of a desire to know how you are faring. I would like your advice on the matter of a former student, Tom Riddle. He reminds me much of you, so perhaps you can imagine why I seek your counsel._

_"Tom is an unimaginably gifted and powerful young wizard. I could see that from the moment I visited him at the Muggle orphanage where, unfortunately, he had been raised. There are times, Gellert, in which I find myself in agreement with your ideology. They are few and far between, but in that hour I spent with Tom in that orphanage was one of them. He was being stifled there, like a plant with no sunlight, and I am heartily sorry that he had to spend his first years in such a place."_

Tom paused in his reading. He knew Dumbledore did not approve of how he had been raised, but to learn that he had been tempted to mete out a vengeance the likes of which Grindelwald would have agreed with...it was surprising to hear Dumbledore speak of such protectiveness toward Tom. 

_"I have been watching Tom very closely during his time here at Hogwarts, and I know he has already gathered followers and plans to delve into the study of Dark magic, perhaps beyond what knowledge even you or I possess. I fear for him, Gellert, and for the Wizarding World should Tom continue down this path._

_"Two years ago, Tom was attacked at school by a mysterious time-traveller. It was a boy who could not have been much older than Tom himself, but he was the victim of a wasting curse the likes of which none of us had ever seen. For some reason, Tom became quite attached to this boy, and feels responsible for his death. The boy was dying when he arrived and tried to kill Tom, so it isn't possible that Tom could be responsible for the boy's fate—unless, that is, the boy told Tom something about Tom's own future, and how it affected him. I cannot be sure, but Tom was determined to save him, and his failure to do so did not sit well with him. He left Hogwarts suddenly, and though I have been able to keep tabs on his activities since, he has recently disappeared._

_"It troubles me a great deal. I cannot say that I handled every situation in the best way with him, but I do want him to be able to realize his potential without putting himself or the Wizarding World at risk. Perhaps this is impossible. Perhaps he will share your fate or worse, Gellert, though it pains me to think of either of you in that way._

_"I suppose I'm not truly seeking advice, but rather an ear. I know you will tell me to stop meddling, and you are right. There is nothing I can do for Tom at this point, unless he reappears and asks for it. In which case I would gladly give him any help he requires. As painful as it was for him, gaining and losing that one boy might have been the catalyst to send him down a different path. I can only hope this is the case."_

Though he had finished reading several long moments before, Tom still stared at the parchment. Grindelwald said nothing and refilled his teacup. Finally, Tom returned the letter with a trembling hand.

"If you want the Elder Wand, then that is what you're up against," said Grindelwald at length. "It's much easier when your enemy remains your enemy, isn't it?"

"Old fool," Tom said softly.

"That may well be," said Grindelwald, "but in that case, he is a powerful old fool. Make no mistake, Mr. Riddle. Though he may wish to see you reform and prove a constructive contributor to the Wizarding World, he will not hesitate to do what is necessary to keep that world safe. I would know," he added, looking down at his lap. "As for the Hallows, I cannot tell you much because I only succeeded in locating the Elder Wand. The cloak and the stone remain a mystery. Though, judging by your stealthy entrance, you may very well have made it further in your quest than I."

Tom said nothing in response to this. Grindelwald did not need to know that the Elder Wand was the only Hallow Tom lacked. "Thank you for the help. And the tea," he said, unfolding himself from the chair. 

Grindelwald drained the last of his tea. "I'm not sure of today's date—because really, what is time when one is serving a life sentence?—but Albus visits Godric's Hollow on his sister's birthday in April. And Mr. Riddle?"

Tom paused in the window. 

"Tell him I said hello."

* * *

**Godric's Hollow, April 1947**

The cemetery was small and plain. Most wizarding gravestones were animated, much like their paintings or photographs, but these were unnervingly still. Cemeteries gave Tom a chill, no matter how old he was. The very idea that someone would simply lie there, with nothing else to do, nothing else to learn...it sounded awful. So it was to his surprise and chagrin that he learned from the old woman—Bathilda had been her name, and she had made particularly terrible tea—that Albus Dumbledore's sister resided in the graveyard, rather than in one of the quaint little cottages of Godric's Hollow. He sat on the chilly ground and leaned against the stone that read, "Ariana Dumbledore, 1885-1899. Beloved Sister."

Tom had knocked on Bathilda's door under the pretense of speaking with her about the impending publication of her book on magical history. A little Veritaserum in her tea when she toddled over to a bookshelf in search of a volume on the Goblin Rebellion ensured her willingness to discuss the Dumbledore family.

"Such a shame," she clucked. "Ariana was a damaged girl, but it was still quite sad for her to die in such a tragic accident."

The story of Dumbledore's friendship with Grindelwald and their subsequent falling out was the stuff of pulp novels read by duller students on the Hogwarts Express, but Bathilda recounted the details with the relish of a historian describing the many duels of Alberta Toothill. The story of what was so clearly misplaced affections on Dumbledore's part gave Tom pause. He hardly thought of Dumbledore as a person, really. A teacher, an authority figure, an adversary, yes...but a person with a past and an ill-fated infatuation with a wizard bent on world domination? Never. The image of Grindelwald's atrocious socks crossed his mind, and he wondered briefly what might have happened if events had taken a different path.

The pop of a wizard apparating into the cemetery drew Tom from his reverie. If Dumbledore was surprised to see him there, he did not show it. Tom stood without a word and moved away from the tombstone, allowing Dumbledore to approach unimpeded. The breeze was still quite crisp, though it did carry the smell of spring about to burst forth across the wooded settlement. Dumbledore smiled.

"I do not usually have company when I visit with Ariana," he said after a moment. "Our brother never comes at the same time as I do. I cannot say I blame him."

"Because he blames you," said Tom. 

"Yes. He blames me, and he blames Gellert. He is right on both counts."

"Why didn't you kill him, when you had the chance?" Tom asked, genuinely curious. The duel between Dumbledore and Grindelwald had become the stuff of legend overnight. It was hard for Tom to fathom not cursing the man into a fine red mist at the first opportunity, especially given his history with Dumbledore's family.

"Believe me, I thought about it," said Dumbledore. He huffed a laugh at the surprise Tom couldn't keep from his face. "I thought about it up until the very moment that I chose not to do it. I chose to let him live because killing him wouldn't bring her back. It wouldn't bring any of them back, and it wouldn't heal any of the other wounds Gellert has caused over the years. And, sadly, I doubt I will ever be able to completely purge my affection for him. So it was selfish, on my part, to let him live. I couldn't bring myself to watch him die."

Beside him, Tom drew his wand. Dumbledore sighed, but he did not draw his wand in return.

"Tom, I do not wish to fight you."

"I don't want to fight you, either, Professor, but I need that wand."

"It would appear the one you have is doing a more than adequate job."

"You're being coy, Professor. You known damned well why it's your wand in particular I need."

"I had an owl from an old acquaintance of mine a couple of weeks ago, saying someone had come by looking for the mythical Elder Wand. He told me you were quite annoyed when you realized who the wand's current master was."

Tom laughed, a high, strained sound. "Can you blame me?"

"No. No, Tom, I don't blame you for anything at all."

Tom felt the barest of nudges at the edges of his mind. He threw up a wall of Occlumency so heavy that Dumbledore drew back a step. He fought every impulse he felt to take his anger out on Dumbledore. "You have done that from the moment you rescued me from that godforsaken orphanage," he said, voice shaking. After a moment, he added, "You might try asking next time."

Dumbledore gave him a skeptical look over his spectacles. "You would have me believe that if I asked, you would share that information with me? That you would have answered truthfully if I had asked you why you blamed Hagrid for opening the Chamber of Secrets, or what happened when you searched out your father and his family, or when you planned to sacrifice that poor girl to save a boy who tried to murder you?"

Tom scoffed. "Of course not," he said, "because you would have tried to stop me. But that doesn't mean you should go poking around in someone's head! It's rude!"

"You're right," said Dumbledore at length. "I apologize. Forgive me for trying to understand you, and for trying to keep you from making grave mistakes." The old man sat on a small bench opposite the gravestones. "So I am asking you now, Tom. Why do you want the Elder Wand?"

The old man's condescending entitlement was astounding. "You...you're impossible," Tom said. "It doesn't matter anymore. I'm taking that wand."

"I'm sure you could take it if you really want to. You're younger, your reflexes are probably better than mine. You're willing to go to lengths which I will not consider. But you need to understand what it is you seek."

"Do you think I don't know what I'm doing?" Tom's patience was wearing dangerously thin.

"Of course you do. But do you know why you're doing it?"

"Because he is important," Tom replied. He thought back to the hunted, haunted look on the boy's face. Even in his weakened state, it was plain that he would have been a formidable enemy...or friend. "I know he is important to me—to my plans," he corrected, "but I have yet to figure out how. He was gone before I could make any bloody sense out of it. I need him back to understand. _I need to understand,_ " he said, voice rising. 

Dumbledore smiled sadly. "There are some things that cannot be understood with the mind, Tom. Some things can only be understood with the heart."

Tom gave him a withering look. "Don't give me that rubbish. It has nothing to do with that. I need to know his significance, and I need all three Hallows to do so. So for the last time, Professor, I am taking that wand."

Dumbledore regarded him thoughtfully for a moment before drawing his wand from the sleeve of his robes and placing it across the palm of his hand. "I surrender," he said, extending his hand toward Tom.

Tom was so surprised he nearly lowered his wand. "What?"

"I surrender," Dumbledore repeated. "You may take the wand."

"Why?"

"Because this quest is important to you. Just how important it is remains to be seen, but I know you need to do this. So I am willing to help you, Tom. Take the wand."

"This is a trick. I won't be the wand's master unless I win it from you."

"It is no trick. Are you not the master of the wand that was given to you when you first attended Hogwarts? But blast the thing out of my hand, if it will make you happy."

Eyes narrowed and still coiled like a snake, Tom approached cautiously and grasped the proffered wand. Nothing unusual happened once it was in his hand; no sparks or tingles of Dark magic. He backed away quickly, not quite trusting the old man. 

"Take care, Tom. Don't let your mission blind you to the true nature of the Hallows," Dumbledore called out. "They will mislead and corrupt you. Their use will only lead to death and destruction."

"That," said Tom with a determined scowl, "is what I am counting on." And with that, he Apparated away from the cemetery.

* * *

Tom possessed all three Hallows now. He was certain this was the first time in many years that the three items were held by the same person, though the significance of the occasion did not result any particularly unusual events. Tom didn't feel any different, and the objects did not behave any differently than they always had. The cloak still made him invisible and the wand worked as a wand should, though the ring was still ineffective at bringing back the boy.

Tom had researched many ways to avoid death in his relatively brief lifetime thus far, so finding a way to directly confront it without falling victim to it was a new challenge. There was nothing concrete or very helpful in any of the books he scoured—and he scoured hundreds of them—so it was as a last resort that he devised a plan based on his own theories. He could only hope that it worked, considering the consequences of failure were rather dire.

He slid the ring onto his finger and tucked the wand into his robes. The cloak he wrapped around his shoulders. He stood before the fire in his tiny rented room, a fistful of floo powder in one hand, a dose of the Draught of Living Death in the other.

It felt silly. Silly, and too easy. But his research was sound and he trusted his own intuition, and it told him that he was on the right track. He stepped into the flames and threw down the powder.

"Death," he said loudly and clearly, before bringing the potion to his lips and emptying the bottle.

Darkness enveloped him almost immediately. When he opened his eyes, he found himself lying on gritty sand. He lay there for a moment, trying to get his bearings.

"Lumos," he whispered, wand springing to life. The light revealed rocky walls to either side, and a low, craggy ceiling above. It was utterly, eerily silent. He wasn't sure which direction to go, but he thought he could scent a faint breeze coming from behind him. Ahead, it seemed more still. He gathered the invisibility cloak around him and set off in the direction of the stillness.

Tom followed the winding pathway through the blackness, fingers dragging along sandy, crumbling rock, wand held aloft to cast what feeble light it could against the unnatural dark. He could hear the tiny clicks his eyelids made when he blinked between breaths. Focused on reaching the recesses of the underworld, he crept doggedly forward. He had no idea how long he had been in the passageway, but it was long enough to make him second guess his own eyes when he could suddenly make out the faintest outlines of his own hands.

Ahead was the glimmer of flame. Feeling much like a moth, Tom made his way toward the light until he could see a figure holding a torch. He dropped his wand to a more defensive position and carefully approached.

"Halt." The voice was neither male nor female, and raspy with disuse. It emanated from somewhere behind a heavy curtain of matted hair. There was a glint that may have been an eye, or a beetle, for that matter. "You have no business here."

The creature could sense him, even with the invisibility cloak, so Tom removed it. "As a matter of fact, I do," he replied. "I have come to retrieve my friend. He was sent here too early and I've come to take him home." He moved to step beyond the filthy figure, but it swung the torch into his path.

"There is no such thing as too early." It stepped closer, inspecting Tom with unseen eyes. "You smell of grief," it said. "You are still alive." Tom found it difficult to believe the creature could smell anything beyond its own stench of bitumen.

"Let me pass," he said. "I've come for my friend, and I will not leave without him."

The sandy, matted creature regarded him still. "No mortal has ever journeyed through the mountain. Only those with nothing left to lose walk this path. Would you tread here for your friend?"

Tom lowered his wand. "This is the way I must go. Why must I be dead to have nothing to lose?"

The creature snorted, though Tom could not tell if it was in humor or in anger. "Then pay the toll," it said. Thinking a moment, Tom found his fingers tracing the carving on the Peverell ring. It was useless anyway, he thought as he pulled it off his finger. He held it out to the guardian, who scraped it out of his palm with withered, clawlike fingers and stepped aside. "I will not be the only one to stop you. If you wish to pass unquestioned, you must not focus so on your loss. The dead do not feel an absence as the living do."

"Thank you," said Tom, wiping his hand on his robes as he stepped past the figure. He was almost out of sight of the flame when the raspy voice called to him, "And do not use your magic. It comes from the energy of life, and they will gather around it like flies. Death will take notice."

Tom paused and reluctantly extinguished his Lumos spell. He called out his thanks once again, but there was no reply. He kept going down the corridor, and although it was dark, it was not the oppressive blackness he had felt before. There was the constant sense of going downward, slowly, where the roots of the mountains were wrapped around the Underworld.

It was not long before he came upon a second torch-bearer, as filthy and decayed as the first. As he drew nearer, Tom did his best to clear his mind of the boy's face, of his fingers on the pawns. He cleared his mind more thoroughly than he had for Dumbledore's prying eyes, and he left his wand tucked in his sleeve.

The creature stepped into his path. "Pay the toll," it commanded. Tom unclasped the invisibility cloak at his throat. The creature took it without a word, but allowed him to pass. Keeping his gaze forward and his steps even, Tom passed the second creature without incident, though he only realized he had been holding his breath when the torch was nearly out of sight and the stagnant air finally demanded entrance to his lungs. He met five more torch-bearers in the passageway. Each demanded a toll, but made no sign that they suspected Tom did not belong there. He gave away his clothing piece by piece until he was forced to walk barefoot on the crumbling stone, feeling the sluggish air shift against every part of him. He had nothing left to give the seventh guardian but his wand, and handing that over to the creature left him feeling the most naked of all.

Tom kept walking forward, wondering what he might do if he met yet another phantom demanding a toll. His worries proved unwarranted as the passageway broadened and the ceiling above his head suddenly vaulted up and out of sight in the blackness. Ahead was a room, though it was so large the boundaries could not be determined as far as Tom could tell. There were thousands of people wandering slowly and aimlessly about the space, never making any sign of recognition of one another.

Keeping to the edges of the crowd as best he could, Tom began to make his way forward. He inspected each corpse—for that is what they were, Tom realized in short order—as he passed, though none was the boy. The beings were in various stages of decay, the more severe gazing up at the ceiling from the ashen ground, hardly more than ashes themselves. There were more than he'd thought upon his entrance, and the sheer number of them made the panic well up in his throat. If only he could use his magic, the search would go much faster. Tom could find the boy and take him before anyone noticed. He could apparate, even, and get out faster. 

The idea grew more appealing with every breath of stagnant air. Surely such an act would not go unnoticed. But what was the use of even considering it? He had surrendered his wand. There was no way he could perform the spells he considered even if he wanted to. Besides, the guardian in the corridor told him not to use magic. Then again, it had also warned him not to continue down the path to the Underworld, and Tom hadn't listened to that bit of advice, either.

He had performed wandless magic before, but anger had always been its source. Tom wasn't sure he could summon that kind of fury now—he felt he was made of nothing but nerves, stretched taut and naked and exposed to any number of things that could snap them in two—but he had to do something. He had not come so far to have the boy lost to him in the sheer mass of the dead. Gathering his concentration, he formed an image of the underground room and its thousands of denizens and whispered, "Legilimens."

Every corpse in the room jerked as the word left Tom's lips. Dull eyes rolled around in sockets, searching for the source of the spell's energy. The bodies were drawn to it just as the first guardian had said they would be, slowly groping their way toward Tom. Tom, however, was coping with the number of thoughts he'd encountered upon initiating the spell. They were of varying intensity, but almost all of them were confused or despondent. He hardly registered the hands that clutched at him, pressing from all sides. He did not understand all the languages they spoke, most of which had not been living languages in millennia, but he understood the urgency behind them. The people thrived on being remembered, on being acknowledged. Those who were forgotten died a slow second death and were ground to ash beneath the feet of the others. Tom's mental search had awakened shades with no hope left. The volume of information was too much, it was going to overwhelm him if he didn't break the connection.

Suddenly the corpses scattered like insects at the spark of a flame. Tom hardly had time to wonder at the abrupt change before something heavy caught him in the middle and threw him to the ground. His head hit the floor hard, and even as the darkness crept inward from the edges of his vision he was left with the image of a feathered foot with four long, curled claws like an owl.

* * *

Tom was awakened by the prickly feeling of claws plucking restlessly at the skin of his chest. He opened his eyes to find a pair of predatory yellow eyes staring back. He jerked in an effort to get away from the unknown entity, but the clawed hand pressed him back down with unexpected strength. The yellow eyes never left his, but Tom slowly began to realize that they did not belong to a beast, but to a woman—a woman who was, in fact, draped across him at the moment.

"Um," he said, for lack of a more coherent statement.

The woman lifted herself enough that Tom's eyes could focus on her face, which was heavy and pale. Though she lacked the drawn and hollowed look of the others, her hair was matted and sandy. Her bright yellow bird's eyes watched him without blinking. He recalled the warning of the first sentinel and realized that this must be Death.

"Why have you come here?" she asked, and her voice hurt his ears.

"I am looking for my friend. He was taken too early."

Tom instantly regretted his words when he felt the claws dig into his hip until they scraped bone. Sweat sprang out all over his body and he bit clean through his lip, but he did not cry out.

"There is no such thing as too early." The woman watched him struggle for a moment, then relaxed her grip on his hip somewhat. "It is rare for the living to make it this far. Something usually gives them away before they wander in the field."

"Like what?" Tom managed through his teeth.

The woman stared at the blood welling on his lower lip. "Like life," she said, leaning forward to swipe it away with a pointed tongue. Tom crushed his eyes shut and turned his face away, breathing hard.

"He doesn't belong here," he said.

"If he is dead, he does." Tom struggled against the woman's weight to no avail. She watched his efforts dispassionately. "Do you think you are the only creature ever to grieve?" she asked. "It is the lot of mortals to suffer. Why do you fight this?"

Even pinned as he was, Tom hissed, "Because it's my fault." Without thinking, he added, "I'll kill you if I have to." He ground his teeth in anticipation of the grip on his hip bone, but it never came. Instead the woman laughed.

"I wish you could," she said at last. Her smile revealed tiny, pointed teeth. "You entertain me." She rose, and for the first time Tom got a clear view of his captor. The woman was tall, with clawed fingers and owl-like feet. Dun-colored wings folded against her back. She clapped once, and another creature scuttled in, matted like the torch-bearers in the corridor.

"This place. It isn't like it it's described in stories." Tom sat up and blanched when the wave of nausea rolled outward from his shredded hip. The owl-woman chuckled at his predicament.

"Everyone has a different idea of what death means, so everyone has their own personal Death. I am yours," she smiled. As she spoke, she carefully licked the blood from her claws. "You are a morose one, aren't you? It has been centuries since I claimed anyone new who views death in such draconian terms. And I have been around for a very, very long time." Tom was trying desperately to focus on her words, on anything but the incredible pain, but it was a losing battle. "I think I will grant you a favor because you amuse me," said the woman. "My bookkeeper here shall look up your friend in her rolls. We will grant you an audience with him. A brief audience," she said firmly. "What is the name of your friend?"

Tom swallowed. "I don't know," he said quietly.

"What?" A look of genuine astonishment crossed the owl-woman's face.

"I said I don't know his name," Tom repeated. "He never had a chance to tell me, and I never had a chance to ask." Tears burned in his eyes, from the frustration and from the soon to be overwhelming pain in his hip. It didn't help matters when he realized the owl-woman was laughing again.

"You do not know his name?" she asked, still laughing. "You are a strange one. Would many mortals make this journey for a man whose name they did not know?" Tom stared at the floor, and at the puddle of blood that was slowly increasing its reach outward from his side. He said nothing. "Nevermind. I can learn such information from you, whether you are aware of your own knowledge or not. Here," she said, kneeling at Tom's side with a silent shake of her wings. She placed her hands on either side of Tom's head and tilted it back, as if she were somehow reading text scrawled across his eyes. After what felt like an eternity, she smiled and released her hold.

"Well? What is his name?" Tom asked, rubbing the crick out of his neck. "When can I see him?"

Still smiling, the owl-woman shook her head. "I am afraid you cannot see your friend."

"What? You said—"

"I said I would grant you an audience with him, yes. I also said that he belonged here if he were dead. If."

Tom was beginning to feel numb; his throat tightened and the edges of his vision grew dark and ragged. "What are you saying?"

"You cannot see your friend because he is not here. He has not yet been born, so how can he have died?"

Tom thought of the Resurrection Stone and how it wouldn't work, and then of the glint of the Time-Turner hanging around the boy's neck. He thought of the remorse he felt for the murder he hadn't yet committed. It all made sudden, terrible sense. 

Then the darkness crept across his vision and he lost consciousness beneath the owl-woman's unblinking yellow gaze.

* * *

He was jolted into consciousness by his abrupt impact with a cold stone floor. Tom opened his eyes and then squeezed them shut again as the impact resonated in his bones.

He had never hurt this much in his entire life.

Slowly his senses came around from being preoccupied with the pain, and he realized two things. The first was that he was still naked, and that brought thoughts of the owl-woman that made his very exposed skin crawl. The second was that he was not alone.

He risked a glance up and realized he was lying on some sort of stone dais in the center of a room ringed with steep stone steps. A handful of wizards and witches were clustered on a couple of stone benches about midway up the steps, and they were staring at him. Realization slowly crept toward him. Tom turned gingerly and looked behind him to find the mysterious Veil swinging slightly in the breeze. A hoarse laugh escaped him. The Veil had coughed him up in the middle of the Department of Mysteries.

He turned back to the Unspeakables, and found the handful of wizards and witches approaching him with cautious wands drawn. He tried to stand, but his legs buckled as the pain tore through him again and he fell once again to the floor. His hip was on fire and he could see tendrils of what looked like insidious, inky black thorny vines crawling along his skin as if they grew outward from the gashes made by Death's claws.

By the time the Unspeakables reached him, Tom had mercifully blacked out once more.

* * *

**Hogwarts, July 2003**

In Albus Dumbledore's office, Tom pressed absently at his hip with one hand.

"I was in St. Mungo's for a month before they finally agreed to release me. They weren't happy that they couldn't stop the progression of the curse entirely, but they couldn't force me to stay any longer. Besides, the reporters were becoming a nuisance to everyone."

Dumbledore nodded, lost in thought. Tom knew his story was a lot to process, even for the nearly (and infuriatingly) omniscient headmaster. Quietly, he added, "I don't know if the curse will continue to progress, or if it will simply stay as it is. That would certainly be miserable enough. In either case, Albus, it won't affect my ability to teach."

"My dear boy, your injury is the least of my concerns."

Tom felt a hot rush of indignation. "It would be a mistake on your part to hold my previous transgressions or ambitions against me. They're gone," he said, anger dissipating as quickly as it had flared. In its place was the exhaustion he so often felt these days. "It's all gone. Albus, any goals I once pursued are no more. I have nothing left. Please don't turn me away." 

The headmaster looked as if he were about to speak, but there came a knock at the door.

"Albus?"

Tom froze. He knew that voice. He glanced at Dumbledore, for once not caring that the headmaster wouldn't even need to resort to legilimency to notice the blind panic radiating from him. Dumbledore, however, raised a hand in greeting to the man entering the office.

"Ah, Harry," he said, placing a hand on Tom's shoulder and forcing him to turn and greet the visitor. "I have someone here I'd very much like you to meet." 

Tom swallowed hard and finally looked up from the floor. The young man standing before him was a paradox, both familiar and foreign. It was most definitely the boy from that fateful day in the corridor, but this man was older, healthier. Happier.

"Harry Potter," said the young man as he extended his hand, "Flying instructor."

Tom hesitated only briefly, then shook Harry's hand. "Tom Riddle."

Harry smiled, and Tom was bewildered by the strength in his lingering grip and the mischief in his eyes. 

"Tom will be replacing Galatea this term," said Albus. Tom shot him a questioning look, but said nothing.

"Those are some intimidating shoes to fill." Harry winked at Albus.

The headmaster waved the remark away. "Tom was a student of Galatea's while he was here. I'm sure he knows exactly what he has to live up to. He'll do splendidly."

A minute furrow appeared between Harry's brows, probably due to curiosity as to Tom's time at Hogwarts. Before he could inquire, however, Albus asked, "I take it you have returned safely from your travels this summer?"

"It was fantastic," said Harry, curiosity forgotten for the time being. "Burkina Faso came out of nowhere. Even Ron got into it, and he didn't even want to stay after Ireland was eliminated." 

"And how is Mr. Weasley?"

"Oh, he's still Ron. They all send their regards, by the way. Hermione, too." Harry grinned and started toward the door. "Anyhow, I just wanted to let you know I was back."

Albus nudged Tom's elbow. "I, er…" he stammered. Harry raised an eyebrow, and Tom somehow managed to put words together. "It was a pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise," said Harry. "See you in a few weeks." And with that, he was gone. 

Once he was out of sight, every bone in Tom's body felt as if it gave way, and he was immensely grateful for the chair that somehow happened to be in the right place at the right time.

"Are you all right, Tom?" Albus knelt next to him with what Tom knew, without a doubt, was genuine concern. And it was this knowledge that allowed Tom to swallow his pride and grip Albus's hand as if it were a lifeline.

"Thank you, Albus," he said. "Thank you."

If Tom's voice was shaky because he was fighting tears, Albus had the wherewithal not to point it out. "You are most welcome, my boy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The descent into the Underworld isn't strictly part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, but it is one of many surviving Gilgamesh stories and shares some elements with the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.
> 
> The idea of everyone having their own personal Death comes from Dumbledore's assessment of Harry envisioning King's Cross after his first death in the final book. If Harry can picture a train station, I imagine Tom would imagine something much darker and more primal.
> 
> More to come in the series. Come on, I can't NOT write professor Riddle.

**Author's Note:**

> Voldemort is usually taken to mean, "Flight from death," though "vol" can also mean "theft" in French ( _Le Vol de la Joconde_ , for example, is a great book about the Theft of the Mona Lisa). I thought it might be fun to play with the meaning of his name in tis situation. It will make more sense later on, I promise.


End file.
